After being at loggerheads with the party leadership for the past couple of years, senior MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday announced the end of his decades-long association with the Congress. The announcement came after filing his nomination papers as an independent candidate for Rajya Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh with Samajwadi Party's support.
The 74-year-old lawyer-politician, who said he quit the Congress on May 16, met SP chief Akhilesh Yadav at the party office in Lucknow. Later, he submitted his nomination paper for the election in the presence of Akhilesh and senior party leader Ramgopal Yadav.
"I am no longer in Congress......I will continue to raise issues concerning UP in the Rajya Sabha," he said.
A vociferous critic of the Gandhi family of late and who had publicly sought the replacement of Gandhis from the Congress leadership, he has been a Congress Rajya Sabha MP and his term is ending next month. Samajwadi Party with 111 MLAs is in a position to get three Rajya Sabha seats that are going to polls next month, while the ruling BJP with 255 MLAs and another 20 from allies can get the remaining eight seats.
Sibal, a former Union Minister in Manmohan Singh's government who was also a signatory of the letter to Sonia Gandhi by 23 leaders seeking clarity on leadership, said he was fighting as an independent candidate as he always wanted to be an independent voice, as a party member has to abide by party discipline.
"It is important to be an independent voice...While staying in Opposition we want to create an alliance so that we can oppose the Modi government," Sibal told reporters after filing his papers.
He said he was thankful to Akhilesh for understanding his position and supporting him. Besides, he also thanked senior SP MLA Azam Khan, who he said has supported him over the years.
Sibal quitting the Congress comes days after Gujarat leader Hardik Patel and Punjab leader Sunil Jhakhar resigned from the Congress.
Akhilesh said that his party needed leaders like Sibal. "Sibal is known for raising issues of public interest in the House and is also a successful lawyer," he said.
Sources in the SP said Sibal, who was also the lawyer for senior SP leader Azam Khan in the Supreme Court, could come handy for Akhilesh in resolving differences between the SP president and Khan, who had hinted at parting ways with Akhilesh. Interestingly Khan, upon being queried about SP's support for Sibal, said that it would be good if his party backed Sibal for Rajya Sabha. SP had fielded Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh's wife, and Javed Ali Khan as its other candidates.
Born in Jalandhar, he was selected for the civil services but he chose to pursue a profession in law and rose to become Additional Solicitor General of India. Sibal entered the Parliament for the first time in 1998 as a Rajya Sabha member from Bihar.
In 2004, he was fielded from Chandni Chowk in Delhi against Smriti Irani and he won, a feat he repeated in 2009. However in 2014, he lost and was nominated to Rajya Sabha in 2016 from Uttar Pradesh.
He became a Minister in Manmohan Singh's Cabinet in 2006, first as Science and Technology Minister and later moved to the HRD Ministry. He also served as Communications and Information Technology Minister and Law Minister.